t LIBR ARY O F CflNflRKSS. t 
I ^^^.^X 1 ^55 I 

*UIIT£D STATES OP AMKMIR'A.^ 



Order and Chaos 



A LECTURE, 



DEL IV E RED AT 



Loyola College, Baltimore, in July, 1869, 



By T. W. M. MARSHALL, Esq. 

Author op "Christian Missions." 



BALTIMORE: 

Published by John Murphy & Co. 

182 Baltimore Street. 
New York . . . Catholic Publication Society. 

Boston. ..P. Donohoe. 
1869. 



3K 



Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in tlie year 18C9, by 
JOHN MURPHY, 
in the Clerk's Office of tlie District Court of Maryland. 



PRINTED BY 

John Mdephy & Co. 

BALTIMORE. 



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OEDER AID CHAOS. 



Ladies ato Gentlemen: 

There is in our world a certain creation of human 
art, which some Christians are able to contemplate 
with sympathy and satisfaction ; others, only with re- 
pugnance and disgust. You are all familiar with it, 
yet I do not flatter myself that I can describe it to 
you in a single sentence. It is too eccentric in its 
outward form, as well as too irregular in its internal 
structure, to be defined in a few words. JN'o two frag- 
ments of this comj)osite fabric, of which I am going to 
speak to you to-night, have the same shape, nor even 
belong to the same material. Perhaps the truest de- 
scription of it would resemble that which the prophet 
gave of the ''great statue^' which the King of Babylon 
saw in his dream. Like that, it has " feet of clay," but 
it has also a head of wood, and a face of brass. All 
the wide regions of Chaos seem to have been search- 
ed, that they might contribute something towards its 
heterogeneous mass. Innumerable quarries have been 
opened, with a perverse industry, only to borrow from 
each a solitary specimen of its contents, so that nothing 
might be wanting to its perfection as a symbol of Dis- 
order. With the materials thus derived, were built 
up, about three centuries ago, a new Tower of Babel. 
More successful than their ancestors in the plain of 
Sennaar, they were allowed to complete it. It has 
changed its original form many times since then, and 
is now almost without shape. It has fallen in here, 
and bulged out there, but though rent and torn in 
every direction, and only sustained by props and but- 

5 



6 



tresses as decrepit as itself, it still stands, to the great 
astonishment even of its admirers, who predict every 
day that the final catastrophe is at hand. Around this 
falling Tower, you may see on certain days a confused 
multitude, who appear to meet together for a common 
purpose, but of whom it is to be noted that each indi- 
vidual speaks a diiferent language, which no one can 
interpret, not even himself. The ear is wounded and 
bruised with the uproar of contending voices, which fill 
the air with ceaseless clamor, as if each strove to pre- 
vail over every other. The president of this tumultu- 
ous assembly is the Angel of Discord, and the building 
round which it is gathered is the Temple of Chaos. Yet 
there are men of excellent natural gifts, some even of 
great natural virtues, who have persuaded themselves 
to believe, and really do believe, that the architect of 
this monstrous fabric is the Most High God. They 
even imagine, so strong is their delusion, that the inco- 
herent sounds which are heard in this temple constitute 
a species of worship peculiarly acceptable to Him, and 
much superior to anything of that kind hitherto in- 
vented by His creatures. But this curious fact need 
not surprise you, when you call to mind that the 
noblest intellects of antiquity — a Plato, a Socrates, 
or a Cicero — were able to accept as realities even 
the picturesque fictions of Pagan mythology ; that an 
Alexander the Great, could seriously invoke Mercury, 
and a Julius Caesar offer sacrifice to Minerva. Man 
is the same in every age, when left to himself, or to 
teachers like himself. In that lamentable condition, 
he can believe anything — except the truth. You know, 
ladies and gentlemen, what name has been given in 
every land to this Temple of Chaos. It has the same 
name in America as in Europe. Men call it Protest- 
autism. 



7 



There is also in our world another creation, not of 
human art, nor imitable by human skill. All the pre- 
tended spiritual architects who ever lived, from Confu- 
cius to Calvin, could not have fashioned tliis building, 
nor any part of it. They could not even have imag- 
ined it. From its foundation stone, which shall never 
be moved, to its topmost pinnacles, which are reared 
so high above the clouds that they are bathed day and 
night in the pure light of Heaven, all is the work of 
Grod. Man could no more make such a fabric as this 
than he could make a world. It is the last and most 
perfect conception of Omnipotent wisdom. It is the 
mirror in which the Uncreated Beauty is most clearly 
reflected. Within its walls only one language is spoken 
and all can interpret it. It is the home of tranquil 
peace, unbroken unity, and the largest liberty which 
the creature can ever know. Long ages ago, the pro- 
phets of Judah saw, in a vision, the building of which 
I am now speaking, and even that far-oif contempla- 
tion of its glories filled them with rapture. ''Go round 
about lier^'' said one of them in a spirit of inspiration, 
""mark well her towers ; set your hearts on her strength^ 
'' I will lay thy foundations with sa^johires,^^ cried another 
in the same spirit, " and I will make thy bulwarks of 

jas^par, and thy gates of graven stones, and 

great shall be the j^eace of thy children.'''' And lest men 
should suppose that it was a thing of purely material 
beauty, which they were invited only to admire, and 
not a Living Power, which they were commanded to 
obey, on pain of eternal death, the great prophet of Re- 
demption uttered this final warning : " The nation and 
kingdom that will not serve tJiee shall 'perish, . . . No 
weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every 
tongue that resisteth thee in judgment thou shalt condemn^ 
And when at last the hour arrived, more than eighteen 



8 



centuries ago, when this " City of the Great King" was 
to be set up on earth, that its courts might be filled 
with human guests ; when the same Omnipotent Yoice 
which had once said, " Let there he light, now pro- 
nounced the new decree, " Tlj^on this rock I will build 
My church it sprang at once into being, so perfect in 
its supernatural loveliness that even its Creator was 
enamoured of it, and called it His Bride. JN'ever since 
He began to create had He given such a name to any 
thing which He had made. I^ever had He deigned to 
unite to Himself by such a tie any of His works. And 
as if all the magnificent promises which had gone before 
too feebly shadowed forth the glory to which this Bride 
was destined, He now added, no longer by the mouth 
of angel or prophet, but with His own lips, these aston- 
ishing words : ''The gates of hell shall not jprevail against 
thee;^^ and He confirmed the new promise by this 
transporting assurance : " Behold, I am with thee all 
days, even to the consummation of the world.^^ Other 
works which He had made might be defaced or come 
to an end, but not this, for He would keep it always in 
the hollow of His hand. Like the Temple of Chaos, of 
which I spoke just now, this building has also a name, 
a name known in heaven and on earth, and which, to 
us who dwell within its walls, is as music in the ear. 
Men call it the Catholic Church. 

I presume to invite you this evening to visit these 
two buildings — the one human, and betraying in every 
stone its human origin ; the other divine, and reflecting 
everywhere the beauty and majesty of Him who made 
it ; the one, the Temple of Confusion and Chaos, and 
the prolific source of the worst evils which afflict human 
society; the other, the sole fountain of supernatural 
Order, both in the spiritual and the social sphere. But 
before we enter either of these temples, I ask your 



9 



permission to make a single preliminary observation, 
which is necessary to prepare the way for the argument 
which I am going to address to you. It is this : 

If there be in this lower world any authority which 
represents God, and speaks in His name — as all Chris- 
tian communities, though with hesitating and stammer- 
ing lips, profess to do, in some sense or other — that 
authority or institution, whatever it be, must reflect, as 
far as the creature can, the mind and the attributes of 
God. Otherwise it is convicted of imposture. For 
whatever in our world does not reflect God, in its own 
measure and proportion, is either a delusion or an 
abomination. Generally it is both at once. The whole 
argument which I am going to submit to your patient 
attention is based on this simple proposition. And 
now, keeping carefully in mind that whatever professes 
to belong to God must faithfully reflect Him, we may 
ask, without further preface, the question which this 
lecture is designed to answer: Is it in Protestantism, 
or in the Catholic Church, that the Divine presence 
and attributes are reflected? 

I commence the reply to this question as follows. If 
we have any sure and rational conviction about God, it 
is this, that He is eternal liarmony^ essential unity ^ in- 
violable 0T(Lei\ and ineffable repose. Even reason can 
find out thus much, as St. Paul reminded the heathen 
to their condemnation, by simply contemplating the 
visible universe. Is it, then, once more, in Protest- 
antism, or in the Catholic Church, that harmony, unity, 
order, and repose are found? Let us visit the temple 
in which each dwells, and as courtesy requires us to 
give our first attention to strangers, let us begin with 
the Temple of Chaos. Our visit, I hasten to assure 
you, will be a brief one, and we may hope, in spite 
of its precarious condition, that it will not fall down 
whilst we are within it. o 



10 



Well, I suppose that we have passed the portal of 
this singular temple, and are fairly inside. What do 
we see ? Our first impression, which will be corrected 
presently, is, that we have found our way into an empty 
sepulchre. How chill and gloomy it is! It reminds 
one of nothing so much as one of those Egyptian 
tombs, monuments of the inanity of human pride,-^ 
v^hich people visit listlessly, as they visit other his- 
torical buildings, only to remark how perfectly useless 
they have become. They note the broken tomb, or ex- 
amine the empty sarcophagus, but hardly care to ask 
whose dust it once contained. What is it to them? 
But a greater surprise awaits us in this building. It 
is supposed to be devoted to some kind of religious 
v^'^orship, yet you cannot find in it, however long you 
may remain, the faintest trace of Grod ! Before we go 
any further, let me olfer you an explanation of His 
absence. The founders of this structure, half-temple 
and half-tomb, were in such a hurry to banish Grod 
from it, in order to enthrone man in His place, that 
they did not even pause to say, Depart from us, 
Lord!" They were bringing in a new worship, in 
which, as the event has proved, man was to be every- 
thing. Henceforth, the highest conception of religion 
was to be — a group of men listening to a man. Yes, 
they had brought Christianity to that. Every mystery 
v/as now rejected. Mysteries, of which science could 
give no account, might be tolerated in everything else, 
because they could not get rid of them. There might 
be mysteries all around them, and in their own per- 
sons, but at all events there should be none in religion. 
And so they made short work of them. St. Paul had 
said, liahemus altare, — ive have an altar; but the first act 
of these new builders was to cry out: " We have neither 
altar, nor priest, nor sacrifice." The next was to cast 



11 



the Christian altar to the ground. The tabernacle, in 
which God had dwelt for fifteen centuries, was broken 
'to atoms. By these prompt and energetic proceedings 
they had already reduced the sacrifice of Mount Cal- 
vary to the dimensions of an historical event, of which 
henceforth no daily commemoration need be made. 
And the sequel was in harmony with this beginning. 
So eager were they to root out the very memory of the 

Daily Sacrifice,''^ which had been the chief rite and 
central mystery of the Christian religion, from the 
hearts of the people, and to substitute for it what the 
]3rophet Daniel, who foresaw this sacrilege, called " the 
abomination of desolation^'''' i. e. the unprofitable talk of 
human teachers, that their leaders commanded the 
very altar stones to be placed in the porch, that all 
w^ho came in might trample them under foot. This 
horrible iniquity, feebly imitated in later times by the 
Pagans of China and Japan, was actually enjoined by 
the English Ridley and his fellows, the founders of the 
Anglican church, and diligently accomplished through- 
out the realm of England. Can you wonder if from 
that hour God deserted the place? How should He 
dwell tliei^e, when they had taken His altars away? 
There was no longer any throne for Him. And so the 
place became, as His prophet foretold, "the abomina- 
tion of desolation." The preacher is there, but not 
God. Man has taken His place. 

But we are still only at the threshold of this deserted 
temple. As you stand there, it seems to you not only 
dark but empty. Yet you will find, as your eyes 
become accustomed to the feeble light, that it is not so. 
Advance a little into the interior, and you will see a 
curious scene. The whole place is filled with different 
groups, more than the eye can count, and in the midst 
of each is a man, who is addressing those around him. 



12 



If your ear could take in simultaneously what each 
speaker says, you would find that they are all talking 
about the same thing, and all giving a different account 
of it. Every man is flatly contradicting in his own 
group what is being confidently asserted in the group 
next to him. And many of the hearers constantly 
pass to and fro from one to the other, and seem to be 
equally pleased with the affirmation and the contra- 
diction. Some have not made up their minds which 
to prefer. But as it is impossible to hear them all at 
once, and would be intolerable to hear them all in suc- 
cession, I propose to you that we should select one of 
the groups at random, and join ourselves to it. There 
is a man in the middle of it, as in all the others. He 
occupies a sort of pulpit, and seems to be preaching. 
But he is not. He is praying, only he does it after a 
fashion of his own, with Avhich you are not familiar. 
I must attempt to describe it to you. He knows very 
well that the people there are listening to him, and 
that he is expected to be what they call "impressive;" 
so he proceeds to satisfy the expectation to the best of 
his ability. You may often read in certain newspapers, 
having a large circulation in the regions of Chaos, of 
certain religious ceremonies, in which one of the offici- 
ating personages is invariably reported to have off*ered 
"an impressive prayer." I have read such an an- 
nouncement a hundred times. You will ask, perhaps, 
how in the world can a man on his knees before the 
dread majesty of God contrive to be "impressive?" 
The notion of trying to produce a sensation under such 
circumstances seems to you as wildly extravagant as 
if a man should undertake to sing a comic song at his 
own funeral. But you are not acquainted with the 
resources of a ministerial artist in the Temple of Chaos. 
He can do things quite as difficult as this. Of course, 



13 



he can only do it in one way, — by forgetting all about 
God, and thinking only of himself, and the poor crea- 
tures around him. In this way, he can be, after a 
certain fashion, very impressive indeed — at least in his 
ow^n judgment and theirs. But the misfortune is that 
his hearers, who also forget all about God, are tempted 
to worship the preacher instead, who has not much 
objection to their doing so, and is still more irresistibly 
tempted to worship himself. You and I only know of 
two kinds of prayer, one offered in heaven, the other 
on earth, and neither of them in the least resembles the 
style of prayer which is known in the Temple of Chaos. 
In heaven, the mightiest angels, at the bare sight of 
whom the strono-est amons; ourselves would faint awav 
with fear, cover their faces with their Vvdngs, and hardly 
dare to look up : on earth, they vv ho will one day con- 
sort Avith angels, also hide their faces, smite their 
breasts, and say, "God be merciful to me a sinner." 
They both see a Vision before them Vvdiich takes away 
all ambition of being "impressive." They are not 
thinking of themselves, but of Him in whose presence 
they stand. How should they turn away their eyes to 
any meaner object? We are told indeed of a certain 
Pharisee, who "prayed icithin himself, a phrase of 
which you have often appreciated the significance, — 
and he too, I doubt not, was very impressive to those 
who happened to be looking at him. But you remem- 
ber what our Lord, who was also looking at him, said 
of his prayer. 

In spite of this formidable judgment, I venture to 
predict that, if you are in the habit of looking at the 
public journals, you will read, before a week has 
elapsed, of somebody offering somewhere, an "impres- 
sive" prayer. There is a class of teachers with whom 
it is a professional necessity to do so. They are paid 



14 



to be impressive, and cannot escape the miserable obli- 
gation. It is a melancholy fact that, in too many cases, 
their prayers are offered, not to God, who does not re- 
quire them to be impressive, but to man who insists 
upon their being so, and would consider himself de- 
frauded, if they were not. This is one of the fatal con- 
sequences of putting man in the place of God. In the 
sight of God, we are only impressive when we forget 
ourselves; in the sight of man, we have most claim to 
admiration when we forget Him. And thus it comes 
to pass that, in the Temple of Chaos, what professes to 
be a supplication to God, is really a discourse to men, 
and what might have been a good prayer, is converted 
info a bad sermon. 

However, the gentleman with whom we are im- 
mediately concerned, has finished his eloquent prayer, 
and is now beginning to preach. Let us hear what he 
has got to say. We have come into his temple at a for- 
tunate moment, for he is preaching about heaven. But 
as you listen, you will find that it is not the heaven to 
which you aspire — the heaven of saints and martyrs. 
He has nothing to tell us about that, probably because 
he knows nothing about it. He is immensely affect- 
ing about what he calls "the recognition of departed 
friends," and "the reunion of husbands and wives," — 
as if the chief employment in heaven was to be the 
perpetual celebration of nuptial rites, — and he draws 
such a ravishing picture of these human delights, he is 
so steeped and saturated in earthly anticipations, that 
we are almost tempted to think the man must be a 
Mahometan. His hearers, who are evidently en- 
chanted, do not seem to care much whether he is or 
not, and the earthly view of heaven which he advocates 
with so much pathos seems to be sufiiciently attractive 
to them. They do not appear to notice, as you and I 



15 



do, that in liis enumeration of future joys, lie does not 
make the slightest allusion to God, and perhaps they 
think, if they think about it at all, that it is quite con- 
sistent, after banishing Him from their temple on earth, 
that they should expel Him from His own temple in 
heaven. With their peculiar views of celestial felicity, 
which is simply the perpetuation of familiar joys and 
the society of sympathising friends, heaven would 
probably be a much more agreeable residence without 
Him. I fear it must be said that the Beatific Vision, 
if they had ever heard of it, would rather repel than 
attract them. They consider too that heaven belongs 
to them, — one does not exactly understand by what 
title, — and as they fortunately possess the power to ad- 
mit all their friends, v/ithout whom it might be a little 
dull and monotonous, it is natural that they should be 
generous, and to borrow a phrase of this world, " keep 
open house." Perhaps, they sometimes abuse the 
privilege. I have heard since I came here of a book, 
which I have not seen, but w^hich is described, by those 
who have, as a meritorious attempt to be witty, without 
the smallest success. It is called, I am told, " the 
Comedy of Canonization." I can say nothing about its- 
contents, of which I am wholly ignorant, but I very 
much approve its title. It is a transparent Comedy, 
that people who belong to the same school as the writer 
of this book, and who disdain the slow^ and cautious 
judicial proceedings of the Roman courts, should cano- 
nize all tlieir friends, whatever may have been the 
nature of their life or opinions, and without a syllable 
of enquiry, as soon as the breath is out of their bodies. 
I agree with the Baltimore clergyman that this is a 
very comic proceeding indeed, only I am not quite sure 
that these jubilant decrees of canonization pronounced 
in the Temple of Chaos are always ratified in the 



16 



Temple of God. But we are forgetting our preacher, 
who by this time has almost got to the end of his 
sermon. I confess to a suspicion, begotten in my mind 
while listening to him, that the only rapturous feeling 
with which he anticipates Paradise, is inspired by the 
delightful expectation that he will there find a congre- 
gation who will never go to sleep, and to whom he may 
preach for all eternity. This, I suspect, is his private 
notion of celestial bliss. Let us hope, for the sake of 
his congregation, that he will be disappointed. It is 
dreary enough, judging by this specimen, to listen to 
one such sermon : who can conceive a more terrible 
fate than to have to listen to it for ever ? An official 
of the great University of Oxford, once observed to a 
visitor, to whom he was showing the beauties of that 
ancient city ; "I have heard all the sermons preached 
in the University pulpit for forty years, and thank 
God, Sir, I am still able to believe in the truth of 
Christianity." I suppose that most persons whose 
hard fate it has been to hear such sermons, in which 
the vanity of one man makes such an exorbitant 
demand upon the patience of many, would confess that 
they rarely come to the close of life without a feeling of 
bitter resentment against those who had inflicted so 
heavy a trial upon them. I conceive too that if the 
epitaph of most of the preachers in the Temple of 
Chaos were composed, not by the heirs of their worldly 
goods, who can afford to offer them a parting compli- 
ment which costs nothing, but by their more dispas- 
sionate hearers, it would be apt to resemble that which 
was suggested for the tomb of a well known architect, 
who had covered the earth with many a pile, not of 
words but of bricks, and over whose body it was pro- 
posed to inscribe these vindictive lines : 

*'Lie heavy on him, Earth, for he 
Laid many a heavy load on thee." 



17 



But it is the peculiar misfortune of all the worshipers 
in the Temple of Chaos that, let the preacher be ever 
so flat, stale and unprofitable, let his dull conceit im- 
pel him to handle subjects ever so far above his com- 
prehension, they have no alternative but patience — un- 
less they prefer slumber. One shudders to think of 
the sufferings inflicted, especially upon innocent women 
and children, by the insatiable vanity of human preach- 
ers, " these earthly god-fathers of heaven's lights," as 
Shakspeare calls them. The late Sydney Smith, who 
could say bitter things, as some of you know, about 
those who offended him, and who said very bitter 
things indeed about certain people in Pennsylvania, 
once suggested, I suppose after being irritated by a 
tedious sermon, that it would be a righteous retribution 
if the mail himself could be " preached to death by wild 
curates." The famous Canon of St. Paul's must have 
been very angry when he uttered this intemperate wish, 
for only the extremest ferocity of malice could desire 
to condemn a fellow-creature to such a fate. It may 
be, however, that a better day is in store for these poor 
sufferers, who begin to find that they have not gained 
much by putting God out of their temples, and sub- 
stituting man in his place. Man- worship has proved 
to be a dreary as well as an unprofitable amusement. 
Already, murmurs deep and loud are heard. English 
newspapers and reviews — I do not know how it is in 
this country — are full of indignant protestations against 
the prosy incapacity or feeble sensationalism of self- 
complacent preachers, and perhaps their reign is draw- 
ing to a close. I once heard the sorrowful indignation 
of their victims expressed in such ingenious terms, that 
I will venture to relate the anecdote to you. " How 
hard it is," said a Protestant, whom I knew and loved, 

that we can never go to Church without being forced 



18 



to listen to a bad essay, in which there is nothing 
amusing except the vanity of the preacher." Every 
age," responded another, whose name is known to you 
if I were at liberty to mention it, " has its own peculiar 
trials. Thus, the primitive Christians suffered martyr- 
dom, and we suffer — sermons." I am happy to add that 
both these gentlemen have since become Catholics, and^ 
are now acquainted with an order of preachers who 
speak only of divine things, and who are too much 
absorbed in striving to promote the glory of God, to 
have much leisure to think about their own. 

And now, ladies and gentlemen, as we shall certainly 
gain nothing by prolonging our visit, we will quit the 
Temple of Chaos. I know not whether you have re- 
marked it, but to me it seems there is a smell of earth 
in it which after a few minutes becomes overpowering. 
However long we staid there, we should find always 
the same dismal entertainment — a man talking to men. 
That is the beginning and end of it. The human can 
only beget the human. Let us go out into the pure air, 
where we can breathe more freely, and where we can 
make certain reflections which our visit suggests. But 
before we do so, let us enter for a moment that other 
temple with which we are more familiar, and where a 
different scene awaits us. 

Do not fear that I am going to describe to you what 
vou all know so well. I will ask you to notice only a 
single point of contrast in the two buildings. In the 
one which we have just quitted, man is the sole object of 
attraction ; in that which we now enter, man is nothing, 
and Grod everything. There are indeed human ministers 
in this temple also, to whom we give our love, our grati- 
tude, and our respect, and none know better than you 
how well they deserve them ; but they will be the first 
to approve my words when I say, that it is not their 



19 



presence which attracts ns. We go as gladly, drawn 
by the same irresistible power, when they are absent, 
as when they are present. I will not say we can do 
without them, which would be senseless ingratitude, 
for they are "the stewards of the mysteries of Grod," 
and have been endowed with special gifts for our sake ; 
but this I will say, and you will confirm it, that even 
when they stand before the altar, neither do they think 
of us, nor we of them, except to recommendt each other 
to the same Master, whose Presence makes both them 
and us forget every other. This is the essential differ- 
ence between the two temples, of which, the one is all 
human, the other all Divine. It has often been ad- 
mitted, at least in part, even by those who could dis- 
cern the contrast without deriving any lesson from it. 
The present Duke of Argyle, who is a sort of Presby- 
terian, has confessed, in one of his writings, probably 
because he thought it useless to deny it, that within the 
precincts of the Temple of Chaos, man is everything, 
and that people only go to church for the sake of the 
pre^^cher. I will only add that the two modes of wor- 
ship display in every other detail all the difference 
which might be expected between what is human and 
what is Divine. Consider if this be not so. There is 
in the whole Book of Revelation only one description 
of the worship in heaven. What is it ? It is such an 
exact description of the worship which you may see 
any day in any Catholic Church of this city, that only 
inveterate and judicial blindness can hinder men from 
seeing that the one is a mirror in which the other is 
reflected. See how exactly the rites correspond. In 
heaven, we are told, by one who saw wdiat he describes, 
there is an " altar," and upon the altar " a lamb that 
was slain," and on their knees before this altar wor- ' 
shipping spirits, who offer "incense" from "golden 



20 



censers,'' and make intercession for their brethren on 
earth. That is St. John's description. Who does not 
see that nothing which is done on earth resembles it 
except the Holy Mass? You know, on the other hand, 
what sort of worship they offer in the Temple of Chaos. 
We looked in just now for a moment to see it. There 
was a man talking, but there was neither altar, nor 
victim, nor silent adorers, nor golden censers, nor the 
sweet perfume of incense, nor the intercession of saints. 
There was literally nothing of what the apostle describes. 
Compare this naked human scene, repulsive in its 
earthliness, with what takes place in the Sanctuary 
which you frequent, and say, which seems to you the 
truest resemblance of the worship which St. John saw 
in heaven? 

If, then, in considering the question whether God 
and His attributes are most clearly reflected in the 
Temple of Chaos or in the Catholic Church, we limit 
our enquiry to the two buildings, and to what goes on 
within them, the decision cannot be doubtful. We 
may even say, that if it were possible to regard the 
skeleton ritual of the human sects — in which the only 
pretence of unity consists in a common resolve to sup- 
press the truth, the only attempt at variety in the mul- 
titude of errors substituted for it — as a counterpart, 
however remote, of heaven, men would no longer expect 
the future life with eager desire, but with unutterable 
dismay. ISTo one, in truth, not even, I suppose, our 
Protestant friends, would desire to dwell in such a 
heaven. The angels would abandon it with horror. 
Yet there is not one of you who does not know, by a 
most blissful experience, that the worship in every 
Catholic church is a true and real reflection of that 
which is offered round the throne of God; that the 
joy with which it inspires you is the same in kind, 



21 



though not in degree, as that which you will hereafter 
derive from the Beatific Vision; and finally, that it 
is no exaggeration, but the simple truth, to say, that 
whenever you assist at the sublime mystery of the 
Christian altar, in which God offers Himself to God,'^ 
and take part in that august worship which alone is 
equal in worth and majesty to Him who is worshipped; 
for yoit the true life of Paradise has already begun, and 
you can aspire to the joy which God has prepared for 
you in the Church in heaven, because you have already 
tasted that kindred joy which He gives you in the 
Church on earth. 

Thus far we have noticed only a single point of the 
contrast between the kingdoms of Order and of Chaos. 
We have insisted, not without reason, that a religion 
which reflects nothing in heaven can only be the pro- 
duct of earth — unless you trace its origin to a still lower 
region. We may now advance a step in our argument, 
and proceed to prove, if indeed it needs to be proved, 
that a religious system which is the most complete 
negation to be found among men of all the prime attri- 
butes of God, and especially of the Divine Oi^der and 
Unity^ cannot have God for its author, because God 
cannot contradict Himself. 

I suppose I may venture to assert, without fear of 
contradiction from any quarter, that if there is any- 
thing absolutely repugnant to the nature of God, it is 
Confusion and Disorder. Sin itself is not more abhor- 
rent to Him than the Disorder which is but the fruit 
and evidence of sin. Examine the material creation, 
and find, if you can, a single department of it which 
is not under the inexorable reign of Law. From the 
stately march of the planets in their orbit to the insect 
in the narrow home in which every want of its ephe- 

*Ipse offer ena, Ipse et ablatio.— St. Augustine. 



22 



meral life is provided, in every corner of the Universe, 
and in every form of matter, animate or inanimate. 
Law and Order assert their despotic and uncontested 
dominion. Even the king of poets understates the 
truth, when he says : 

"There is nothing, situate under heaven's eye, 
But hath his bound, in earth, and sea, and sky." 

I am not going to weary you with many examples, 
but you will permit me to notice one or two, which will 
render any further illustration of this point superflu- 
ous. If you find, as you certainly will, that even where 
Order is least apparent — nay, that even in the very 
phenomena which seem to be the direct result of its 
absence — an energetic and invariable law is actively 
working; you will feel that this part of our case is 
superabundantly proved. I will give you only three 
examples, to which I solicit your patient attention, — 
one in the far-otf regions of space, one on the earth, 
and one in the clouds which are its curtain and canopy. 

1. When the great Kepler strove to penetrate the 
mystery of our planetary system, and to correct the 
astronomical errors of the Egyptian Ptolemy, he was 
startled by this discovery. He found that the various 
planets which revolve in that system appeared, at a 
first glance, to have been formed and projected into 
space, without order or method. They all varied in 
dimension, in density, in velocity, and in their distance 
from the sun. In the smaller planets, or asteroids, as 
Yesta and Pallas, a man could spring into the air sixty 
feet, and return to the ground without a shock; while 
in other planets his own weight would crush him to 
atoms, so great is the force of attraction. In a word, 
they differed in every point, and seemed to have no 
mutual relation. Here, then, was a singular apparent 



23 



absence of law and order. When Kepler saw this, 
inspired partly by his genius and partly by a profound 
religious sentiment, he said to himself: "That is not 
so ! There is a law, if I could only find it, for God is 
never at variance with Himself." And then, after 
many a patient toil and vigil, he made that splendid 
discovery which astronomers call the Third Law of 
Ivepler. JSTot only did he find a law even in this appa- 
rent confusion, but a law which could be expressed 
with mathematical precision, which bound together in 
a magnificent symmetry every planet in our system, 
and which disclosed to him and to us this truth — that 
the squares of their periodic times are proportioned to 
the cubes of their mean distances from the sun. It 
was then that the illustrious student, full of gratitude 
to Him from whom all knowledge comes, cried out, 
with a rapture vvdiich was more religious than scienti- 
fic : "I have stolen the golden vases of the Egyptians, 
to build up a tabernacle for my God." 

2. The second example which I will briefly notice is 
not less remarkable. The late Alexander Von Hum- 
boldt, who probably possessed as much human and as 
little divine knowledge as any man who ever lived, 
used to say that if the philosophers of an earlier genera- 
tion had carefully observed the phenomena of terrestial 
magnetism, discoveries of the most momentous kind 
might have rewarded their labour. He probably did 
not know that, more than a century before any one else 
had paid much attention to the subject, the missionaries 
of the Society of Jesus, as great in human as in divine 
science, had been in the habit of constantly registering 
during their innumerable apostolic journeys, the varia- 
tions of the magnetic currents. All honor to this noble 
Society, to which we all owe so much. But wdiat I 
wish you to notice is a fact which later investigations 



24 



in this science have revealed, that even the most ap- 
parently eccentric movements of that subtle and mys- 
terious agent to which I am alluding, and which here- 
tofore were supposed to be due to purely accidental 
causes, are now known to be the result of an invariable 
laiu; so that in this department of creation also, and 
generally even in what are called the "disturbing- 
forces" of nature, the idea of confusion is finally elimi- 
nated, and we learn once more that, in all the works of 
God, from the least to the greatest, when you rashly 
deem that you are face to face with Chaos, one ray of 
light dispels the mists which produced the deception^ 
and Order stands unveiled before your astonished 
gaze. 

3. One more illustration, and then I will endeavor 
to complete my argument, and release you from the 
attention which I am so little able to recompense. If 
there be anything in nature, anything of which man's 
senses can take cognizance, which appears to belong 
undeniably to the realm of Chaos, it is surely the tem- 
pest, which, on sea or land, bears ruin on its wings, 
leaves ruin in its track, and seems to have the same 
relation to Order, which Madness has to Reason. But 
we have learned by this time to distrust appearances, 
especially when we are talking about the works of the 
Creator. And what is the fact ? Your own Maury has 
shown in this country, and Colonel Reid in England, 
that even the hurricane and the cyclone, in all their 
might and fury, are as docile to the reign of law as 
the humblest machine constructed by human ingenuity, 
is submissive to the hand that made it, and the English 
writer referred to has actually given to his book this 
significant title, "The Law of Storm." 

And now to apply these facts, and show how they 
bear upon our argument. You are asked to believe, by 



25 



tliose who prefer the Temple of Chaos to the Sanctuary 
of Grocl, this monstrous proposition ; — that although 
Disorder is inexorably banished, as we have seen, 
from every other part of His dominions, as a thing 
abhorrent to the Divine Architect, it finds its true 
home and congenial refuge precisely in that spiritual 
kingdom of which He is at once the Law Giver and 
the Life. Brute matter knows nothing of it ; earth, 
and sea, and sky, refuse to give it a place ; the very 
beasts of the field obey a law which regulates all the 
conditions of their existence ; but Confusion and Chaos, 
which can find a home nowhere else, reign, and ought 
to reign, in the Christian Church, and in the kingdom 
of souls ! That is the proposition which is deliberately 
maintained, at this hour, and in this land, by men 
whose profession it is to teach others eternal truth. 
They gravely assert that Religion — which, when it is 
Divine, is a bond of union stronger than adamant, and 
when it is human, is the most active dissolvent, the 
most powerful disintegrating agent which divides and 
devastates modern society — gains by ceasing to be one, 
and that Christianity derives its chief vitality from the 
very divisions which make it contemptible in the sight 
of unbelievers, and had often provoked the scorn and 
derision even of the pagan world. As this statement 
may seem to you impossible, even in this nineteenth 
century, which is tolerant of all absurdities in the 
sphere of religion, I will quote to you the very words 
of one of the most conspicuous preachers of this land, 
who holds a high position in the Hierarchy of Chaos. 
I take them from one of your own local journals, of the 
second of this month, (June.) You know that of late 
years many Protestants, weary of their ceaseless con- 
flicts and ashamed of their unending divisions, have 
begun at last to sigh for the unity which they have lost, 



26 



and that in England they have even formed a society, 
with the express object of bringing together what they 
ignorantly call "the different branches of the Church." 
We are told, however, by the journal to which I allude, 
that the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, vehemently 
rejecting every such project, lately "preached against 
the schemes of church union, whether planned by Pope,^ 
Protestant, or Pagan," — pray understand that these are 
not my words, — and added this characteristic dissua- 
sive from unity. " The strength of the Christian reli- 
gion lies," he said, — in what do you suppose? in its 
truth, its holiness, or its peace? no, but — "m the num- 
her oftlie existing denominations T The hands fall down 
in reading such w^ords. "I pray," said He who will 
judge the world, "that they may all be one^ as Thou, 
Father, art in Me, and I in Thee." I sincerely trust, 
replies Mr. Beecher, that they never will be one. "Be 
perfect," said St. Paul, " in the same mind and the same 
judgment r It is much more important, rejoins Mr. 
Beecher, that you should maintain your divisions and 
perpetuate your differences, for in tliem lies the strength 
of Christianity. " Sects," observed the same Apostle, 
"are the work of the flesh." Mr. Beecher judges 
them more leniently, and warns his hearers, as you 
see, against the mistake of St. Paul. Yes, these human 
teachers have come at last to this. They know so well 
that supernatural Unity is beyond tlieir reach, that they 
have come to hate it, and to call it an evil ! Yet even 
they will not deny that it was the Unity of the first 
Christians which conquered the heathen world ; and 
when the victory was accomplished, and the surviving 
pagans had only strength enough left to beat them- 
selves against the ground where they had fallen, tliey 
also cried out in their impotent rage: Execranda est 
ista consensio — cursed be this Unity of the Christians." 



27 



Tliey had found it to be invincible, but did not know 
that it was Divine. Mr. Beecher dares not say openly, 
"Cursed be the Unity for which Christ prayed," for 
even his disciples, though they can bear a good deal, 
could not bear that; but he is not afraid to say: 
" Blessed be Chaos ! " " Confusion, thou art my choice ! " 
" Disorder, be thou nriine inheritance!" Let us wish 
him a happier lot, both in this world and the next. 

The truth is that our separated friends do not 
and cannot understand the sacred mystery of Unity, 
because they are so exclusively occupied about man, 
that the secrets of God are hidden from them. What 
is Unity? It is in essence purely Divine, and in its 
perfection exists only in the Adorable and Incompre- 
hensible Trinity. But for this very reason, whenever 
you find Unity in created things, you may be sure that 
you are looking upon an image and reflection of God. 
]N"ow there is in this world one society, and one only, 
in which that Unity has never been interrupted. That 
society is at once the most numerous and the most 
ancient of all Christian communities. It is found in 
all Kingdoms and States, it reaches from pole to pole, 
and embraces all orders and degrees of men. Yet, in 
spite of the infinite diversity of their character and 
temperament, of their education, modes of thought, 
habits of life, sympathies, prejudicies. language, and of 
whatsoever else distinguishes man from man; this vast 
multitude, speaking all the dialects of the world, and 
differing from each other, often with unnecessary ve- 
hemence, about all else, are as indissolubly one in all 
which relates to supernatural truth, — to God, their 
own souls, and the relations between them, — as if they 
had only one heart and one mind. And they are one, 
not only in faith, but even in discipline and govern- 
ment. In the whole history of the human race there 



28 



is no record of any such miracle as this. If all the 
dead should come to life again at the same hour, and 
crowd our streets and thoroughfares, it would not be a 
greater. The men of this generation, like the Jews of 
old, " desire a sign^^ in order that they may believe. 
Here is one more luminous than the noonday sun. The 
lightning does not shine out of heaven with a more 
dazzling brightness. The essential character of God 
is Tlnity^ and whatever professes to belong to Him, 
whether in the kingdon of nature or of grace, must 
reflect that Unity. If it does not, it is not His work. 
JNTow, not only do the sects know nothing of it, but 
their very existence is a perpetual protest against it. 
Yet in the Church, though her children are, by nature, 
frail and mutable, like all the children of Adam, there 
is a Unity and a Repose like the Unity and the Re- 
pose of God. Who has wrought this marvel? Con- 
sider over what an array of countless impossibilities 
this miraculous Unity of the Church has triumphed. 
The supple Italian, keen of wit and of ardent imagi- 
nation; the stolid Englishman, who moves slowly to 
attain his ends, but only to pursue them with a more 
unwearied tenacity ; the brilliant Frenchman, who 
unites restless vivacity with exquisite common sense, 
and is not more fertile in inventing paradox than 
merciless in exposing it ; the thoughtful German, who 
numbers all the truths in his possession like objects in 
a museum, and knows exactly the place which he has 
assigned to each ; the stately Spaniard, who is almost 
oriental in his immobility, and in whom we discern a 
gravity of mind which gives even to the mendicant the 
dignity of a king; the impulsive Irishman, who has 
more wit than the English, more enthusiasm than the 
German, and, wherever he finds fair play and just laws, 
more industry than either of them; the acute American, 



29 



whose boast it is that no difficulty can baffle his enter- 
prise nor any counterfeit escape his detection ; all these, 
and twenty other races whom I do not stay to enume- 
rate, contrasting violently with each other in every 
natural gift and habit, while retaining all their dis- 
tinctive peculiarities as men and citizens, become abso- 
lutely one^ as if all fashionecl in the same mould, and 
moved by the same spirit, as Christians and Catholics. 
And this astonishing unity of elements so various 
and contradictory is perpetuated from age to age, in 
a world where all else is in a state of chronic flux and 
solution, silently, peacefully, without elfort, and with- 
out constraint. Nay, so irresistible is the mysterious 
power which works this miracle, that even the convert 
of yesterday, whether in the centres of European civili- 
zation or amid the semi-barbarous populations of China 
or Hindostan, though admitted but a few hours ago 
into the family of God, has already the sweet spell 
upon him, and finds, to his own exceeding astonish- 
ment, that his heart beats in unison wdth the great 
heart of the Church, as if he had been suckled at her 
breasts, and had lain in her bosom from infancy. 

On the other hand, in the human communities which 
owe their existence to earthly founders, though there is 
much virtue, much acuteness, much learning, it has 
ever been found impossible to keep even the members 
of the same sect — I will not say in one country, or 
in one town, or in one village, but alas! in one family 
— from perpetual disputes even about the sublimest 
truths of revealed religion. INTever since the Fall has 
the enemy, whose mission it is to scatter and divide, 
obtained so great a triumph over any portion of our 
race — a triumph so complete, that even the same indi- 
vidual at different epochs of his life, is often in flagrant 
contradiction with himself, avow^s to-day opinions which 



30 



yesterday he abhorred, and whicli to-morrow lie will 
exchange once more for new ones, and after belonging 
successively to various religious denominations, fre- 
quently ends by professing equal contempt for them 
all. And thus it has come to pass that in the world of 
Chaos, — in that dismal region which lies outside the 
Church of God, — two modes of thought now prevail to 
the gradual exclusion of all others : the first, that truth 
is what every man thinks it to be ; the second, which 
is the logical equivalent of the first, that truth has no 
existence. 

In presence of this immense contrast, which the least 
observant of mankind can detect, between the inde- 
fectible unity of the Church and the hopeless disorder 
of .the sects, the members of the latter have felt the 
urgent necessity of attempting some explanation. They 
have comprehended, in spite of the inactivity of their 
spiritual apprehension, that since Unity is an infallible 
indication of the presence of God, hecaitse God alone can 
froduce it, it follows that it is only in the Catholic 
Church that He resides. The conclusion is peremptory, 
and they feel it to be so. For this reason, while some 
have ventured in their anger to revile Unity, which is 
to blaspheme God, and to sing the praises of Disorder, 
which is to chant a hymn to Satan ; others have sought 
to account for the Unity which they despair of attaining 
on purely human grounds. It is, they say, the subtle 
organization, the persevering arts, and the inexplicable 
skill of the Koman Church which binds all her mem- 
bers together with that adamantine chain which neither 
the world nor the devil can break asunder. They do 
not seem to perceive that the answer is suicidal, like 
that which the serpent makes when he turns his fangs 
against himself, and dies of his own sting. Catholic 
Unity the result of human art! Why the same men 



31 



tell us every day, with the touching humility and self- 
abasement which, as you know, is the chief character- 
istic of Protestantism, that sagacity, enlightenment, 
penetration, knowledge of the human heart, skilful 
diagnosis, and generally every mental and spiritual 
pre-eminence, are their own peculiar heritage; while 
we are so slenderly equipped with both moral and in- 
tellectual gifts, that our continued success in attracting 
the pure, the wise, and the learned of all ages and 
countries is the most incomprehensible of the triumphs 
of the Catholic Church. If, then, Catholic Unity be the 
result of human art, will these spiritual and intellectual 
giants tell us how it is that the?/ are totally unable to 
imitate it ? What ! so much more ingenious and spir- 
itual than we are, and yet always ignominiously baffled 
in doing what the Church always accomplishes without 
effort ? There is evidently nothing serious in such an 
explanation as this. It means nothing, and was not 
intended to mean anything. What, then, is this Power 
which is given to us, and denied to them? If it be 
human, let them define and localize it. But this they 
will never do. They cannot say where nor what it is, 
because its source is concealed in a far-off region to 
which the?/ have no access. The earth says. It is not 
in me. The sea murmurs. It is not in me. Hell con- 
fesses. It is not in me. If, then, by the testimony of 
all mankind, there is one Power, and one only, which 
works this miracle, and unites all hearts in a mysteri- 
ous and supernatural unity, in spite of human frailty 
and caprice, and if that Power can be found neither on 
the earth nor under the earth, where shall we look for 
it but in heaven ? 

We are sometimes told that good men abide content- 
edly in some earthly sect because, in spite of honest 
intentions, they are really unable to recognize the true 



32 



Churcli. It may be so, tlioiigli such involuntary ignor- 
ance seems to us only a bare possibility. For if St. 
Paul could say, as be did, to the heathen world, " you 
might have found out the true Grod by His works^ if 
you had cared to do so ;" surely the Grod of St. Paul 
may say to the children of Chaos in the great Day, 
" you might have known the true Church by her Unity, 
if you had not closed your eyes." 

Without presuming to anticipate the judgments of 
God, which we have neither the power nor the inclina- 
tion to do, there is one conclusion which even we 
mortals can draw, without the risk of error, from the 
considerations which I have now submitted to you. 
We have seen that in the kingdom of souls, as in the 
kingdom of matter, it is the will of the Most High that 
His own essential Unity should be reflected. It fol- 
lows, that religious sects, which are the perpetual ne- 
gation of that Unity, can only be agreeable to Him on 
this supposition, — either that He has changed His 
nature, or that, having failed to suppress what is in 
irreconcileable opposition with Himself, He ceased to 
take any further interest in the affairs of men, and 
consented, as far as they were concerned, that Order 
should be replaced by Chaos. 

It is to be noted of the argument which I have just 
employed, that while the most powerful intellect can 
suggest no reply to it, a little child can use it with full 
appreciation of its force. Permit me to give you a 
proof of this. 

Some years ago, I was present officially at the exam-., 
ination of an English primary school, in which the 
children displayed such unusual accuracy and intel- 
ligence as long as the questions turned only upon sec- 
ular subjects, that I was anxious to ascertain whether 
they could reason as well about the truths of the Cate- 



33 



chism, as they could about those of Grammar and 
Arithmetic. I communicated my desire to their cler- 
gyman, who kindly permitted me to have recourse to 
a test which I had employed on other occasions. I 
requested him to interrogate them on the JN'otes of the 
Church, and when they had explained in the usual 
manner the meaning of the word Catholic, I took up 
the examination, with the consent of the Priest, and 
addressed the following question to the class: "You 
say the Church is Catholic because she is everywhere. 
I^ow, I have visited many countries, in all parts of 
the world, and I never came to one in which I did 
not find heresy. If, then, the Church is Catholic be- 
cause she is everywhere, why is not heresy Catholic, 
since heresy is everywhere also?" ^' If you please, 
sir," answered a little girl about twelve years of age, 
" the Church is everywhere, and everywhere the same; 
heresy may be everywhere too, as you say, but it is 
everywhere differ ent^ 

I related this incident not long after, as a proof that 
faith is an intellectual power, to one of the greatest 
lawyers in England, a man accustomed to ap]3raise all 
the products of the human intellect. He declared to 
me his opinion that it was the most astonishing answer 
ever made by a child. He was wroi^g. I have myself 
heard similar answers a hundred times. And you. 
Ladies and Gentlemen, will certainly not share the 
surprise of this eminent lawyer, because you know that 
a little Catholic child, who has learned the Catechism, 
and nothing else, is a truer and deeper philosopher, in 
the sight of God and the angels, than all the Pagan 
sages of the past, or all the Protestant doctors of the 
present. 

As I have strayed once more into the region of anec- 
dote, perhaps you will allow me to linger there for a 
5 



34 



moment. It may relieve the tediousness of a discussion 
which I fear has exhausted your patience, if I add two 
or three which will be found to possess at least this 
merit, that they all confirm, in various ways, the argu- 
ment which I have had the honour to address to you 
this evening. 

A young English lady, with, whom I became subse- 
quently acquainted, and from whose lips I heard the 
tale, informed her parents that she felt constrained to 
embrace the Catholic faith. Hereupon arose much 
agitation in the parental councils, and a reluctant 
promise was extorted from the daughter that she would 
not communicate with any Catholic priest till she had 
first listened to the convincing arguments with which 
certain clerical friends of the family would easily dissi- 
pate her unreasonable doubts. These ministers were 
three in number, and we will call them Messrs. A, B, 
and C. The appointed day arrived for the solemn dis- 
cussion, which one of the ministers was about to com- 
mence, when the young lady opened it abruptly with 
the following remark: "I am too young and unin- 
structed to dispute with gentlemen of your age and 
experience, but perhaps you will allow me to ask you a 
few questions?" Anticipating an easy triumph over 
the poor girl, the three ministers acceded with en- 
couraging smiles to her request. " Then I will ask 
you," she said to Mr. A., ^' whether regeneration always 
accompanies the Sacrament of Baptism?" "Un- 
doubtedly," was the prompt reply, "that is the plain 
doctrine of our Church." "And you, Mr. B.," she 
continued, " Do you teach that doctrine? " " God for- 
bid, my young friend," was his indignant answer, 
" that I should teach such soul-destroying error. Bap- 
tism is a formal rite, which," &c., &c. "And you, Mr. 
C," she asked the third, " what is your opinion ? " "I 



35 



regret," he replied with a bland voice, for he began to 
suspect they were making a mess of it, " that my 
reverend friends should have expressed themselves a 
little incautiously. The true doctrine lies between 
these extremes " — and he was going to develop it, when 
the young lady, rising from her chair, said : "I thank 
you, gentlemen, you have taught me all that I expected 
to learn from you. You are all ministers of the same 
Church, yet you each contradict the other even upon a 
doctrine which St. Paul calls one of the foundations of 
Christianity. You have only confirmed me in my reso- 
lution to enter a Church whose ministers all teach the 
same thing." And then they w^ent out of the room one 
by one, and probably continued their battle in the- 
street. But the parents of the young lady turned her 
out of doors the next day, to get her bread as she could. 
They sometimes do that sort of thing in England. 

Another friend of mine, also a lady, and one of the 
most intelligent of her sex, was for several years the 
disciple of the distinguished minister who has given a 
name to a certain religious school in England. Be- 
coming disaffected towards the Episcopalian Church, 
which appeared to her more redolent of earth in pro- 
portion as she aspired more ardently towards heaven, 
she was persuaded to assist at a certain Ritualistic 
festival, which it was hoped would have a soothing- 
effect upon her mind. A new church was to be opened, 
and the ceremonies were to be prolonged through an 
entire week. All the Ritualistic celebrities of the day 
were expected to be present. Her lodging was judi- 
ciously provided in a house in which were five of the 
most transcendental members of the High Church 
party. It was hoped that they would speedily con- 
vince her of their apostolic unity, but unfortunately, 
they only succeeded in proving to her that no two of 



36 



thejn were of tlie same mind. One recommended lier 
privately to pray to tlie Blessed Virgin, which another 
condemned as, at best, a poetical superstition. One 
told her that the Pope was by Divine appointment the 
head of the Universal Church ; another, that he was a 
usurper and a schismatic. One maintained that the 
"Reformers" were profane scoundrels and apostates; 
another, that they had at all events good intentions. 
But I need not trouble you Avith an account of their 
various creeds. Painfully affected by this diversity, 
where she had been taught to expect complete uni- 
formity, her doubts were naturally confirmed. During 
the week she was invited to take a walk with the 
eminent person whom she had hitherto regarded as a 
trustworthy teacher. To him she revealed her growing- 
disquietude, and presumed to lament the conflict of 
opinions which she had lately witnessed, but only to 
be rewarded by a stern rebuke ; for it is a singular fact 
that men who are prepared at any moment to judge all 
the Saints and Doctors, will not tolerate any judgment 
which reflects upon themselves. It was midwinter, and 
the lady's companion, pointing to the leafless trees by 
the roadside, said, with appropriate solemnity of voice 
and manner: "They are stripped of their foliage now, 
but wait for the spring, and you will see them once 
more wake to life. So shall it be with the Church of 
England, which now seems to you dead." "It may be 
so," she replied, "but what sort of a spring can we ex- 
pect, after a winter which has lasted three hundred yearsT 
You will not be surprised to hear that this lady soon 
after became a member of a Church which knows 
nothing of Avinter, but within whose peaceful borders 
reigns eternal spring. 

My next anecdote, you will be glad to hear that it is 
the last, shall be borrowed from your own country. A 



37 



few weeks ago, the heads of one of the largest religious 
denominations of this land assembled in council. Their 
body had been split into two sections, and they desired 
to heal the schism. "It is impossiUe to do so," observed 
one of them, who appears to have had some dim con- 
ception of the nature of Christian truth, "for we differ 
on the gravest points of doctrine." But the majority 
promptly overruled this trivial objection. AVhat was 
mere unity of doctrine compared with the advantage 
of presenting an apparently united front to the public 
eye? And so the objectors were silenced, as such ob- 
jectors generally are in the Temple of Chaos. One gen- 
tleman, a Doctor of Divinity, — of what sort of Divinity 
you will see in a moment, — clenched the whole matter 
with this decisive argument: "We do not differ," he 
said, "about doctrine, but only about the philosophy 
of doctrine." From which ingenious distinction you 
clearly perceive, that when one man teaches the Atone- 
ment, and another denies it; or, when one believes in 
the Incarnation, and the other rejects it ; they still re- 
main in perfect harmony as Christians, and merely 
differ a little in opinion as philosophers. It is possi- 
ble, according to this remarkable theory, to err to any 
extent in philosophy, but not possible to err at all in 
religion. One would have been glad to ask this Doctor 
of Divinity, since that is his title, just for the sake of 
information, how a false philosophy can possibly be a 
true religion? But it is probable that he would have 
declined to answer the question. A celebrated person 
once said: " Liberty, how many crimes are committed 
in thy name." Perhaps, we may say in our turn : " 
Philosophy, how much nonsense is talked in thine." 

I have detained you too long, though I have said 
but little, and said that little imperfectly. Yet we 
have seen, perhaps with sufficient evidence, this essen- 



38 

« 

tial distinction between the kingdoms of Order and 
Chaos, between the Church and the Sects ; that in the 
one everything reflects the presence and the attributes 
of Grod, while in the other, man has usurped His place, 
and reigns alone^ surrounded by all the customary 
emblems of human feebleness, vanity, and imperfection. 
I must not conclude without calling you.r attention to 
this correlative fact, that in the Church, which is God's 
realm, effectual provision has been made for the remedy 
of all transient disorders, and the prompt repair of all 
waste and loss ; while in the Sects, where man is the 
sole lord, and must do his own work because there is 
none to help him, no sign of any such provision exists. 
This also is just the distinction which we might have 
expected to find between what is human and what is 
Divine. 

Every student of nature has noted with admiration 
the astonishing facultjj of recujperation which it displays 
in all its departments. The same phenomenon exists in 
the kingdom of grace. In both a machinery has been 
created, and is constantly in active operation, by which 
wounded and enfeebled organisms are able to attain a 
noAV vitality. I ask your permission to dwell for an 
instant on this analogy. It was worthy of our God so 
to arrange the order of the universe, and assure its 
stability, that no fatal shock, no irreparable disaster, 
should be permitted to disturb its equilibrium. The 
sun may not quit its allotted place, nor the planets 
wander from their appointed sphere. In like manner, 
though her habitual lot is trial and suffering, the 
Church remains for ever unmoved on her eternal foun- 
dations. But if God has thus limited the field beyond 
which no serious derangement of His work shall be 
allowed, either in the world of nature or of grace, till 
the end of time, His Providence has not excluded the 



39 



possibility of disorders on a smaller scale. Yet even 
in tolerating these apparent defects, He only gives a 
new proof of His omnipotence. Both in the material 
and the spiritual creation, there resides a marvellous 
power of correcting momentary disorders, of applying 
a remedy to transient corruptions. With respect to 
the first, you know that there is no more elementary 
truth in physics than that life is actually begotten of 
death. You see this every day in the vegetable world, 
and even in the animal economy, you are not ignorant 
by what process the daily waste of tissues and other 
parts is incessantly supplied, and that even the most 
formidable ravages of disease in the human frame can 
be repaired by that astonishing growth of matter which 
is called the granulation of new flesh. I wish you to 
observe, without attempting to multiply such examples, 
that these phenomena of reproduction, which you notice 
with so much admiration in the kingdom of matter, are, 
incomparably more beautiful and surprising in the 
kingdom of grace, and that they exist, as I said, only 
in the Catholic Church. 

In the kingdom of souls there are two possible evils, 
— corruption of doctrine, and corruption of morals. 
For both, God has provided remedies so divinely effi- 
cacious, that nothing which occurs in the material uni- 
verse can be fitly compared with them, except by way 
of analogy. Thus, in the sphere of morals, there re- 
sides in the Church a power of healing so mighty, that 
only the direct co-operation of God can explain its ac- 
tion. 'No depravity, however inveterate, can resist it. 
I need only remind you that St. Mary Magdalen and 
St. Mary of Egypt, are both canonized Saints, whom 
the Church has raised upon her altars as models of 
humanity. Tens of thousands since their day, who 
have fallen as they fell, have been created anew as they 



40 



were, by the omnipotence of tlie same remedial Sacra- 
ments. It would not become me to attempt to describe 
them. Such a theme is too high for me. I leave it to 
those who speak Avith consecrated lips. But I ask, and 
you have already anticipated the question, what similar 
provision for sick souls exists outside the Church of 
God? 

My personal experience, as one whose misfortune it 
was to be during seven years a teacher in the Temple 
of Chaos, compels me to affirm that there is none. Ac- 
cording to my observation, the common case of those 
who sin mortally outside the Church is this, that when 
the hour of awakening arrives, — for many it never 
comes at all, or only comes too late, — they either embrace 
some new heresy still more monstrous than any which 
they had previously professed, or fall into deadly pre- 
sumption. I remember being called, during the melan- 
choly period of my life to which I have alluded, to the 
death-bed of a woman in whom it was impossible to 
detect a single feature of the Christian character. Yet 
she replied to my exhortation, with the sneer of pride 
on her dying lips: "You need not trouble yourself 
about me, Sir, I was saved long ago." In this case, as 
in many like it, I was reminded of the malediction 
pronounced upon those " whose last state is worse than 
the first." Nor was it more consoling to witness other 
deaths, in which counterfeit rites and sjpurious sacra- 
ments strove to hide the mortal wound of the soul 
without being able to heal it, and copied the external 
forms of the Christian ritual only to disguise the ruin 
which they were powerless to avert. But I pass from 
this sorrowful subject to the corruption of doctrine. 

To record all that the Church has done from the 
beginning to preserve the faith from corruption would 
be to write her history. You know how in every age, 



41 



she alone lias baffled all the arts of the wicked . one, and 
preserved the deposit entrusted to her keeping. I will 
not remind you of her victories over every heresy in 
ages gone by, but will ask you to notice only a single 
example in our own time. It will amply suffi.ce as an 
illustration of the point which we are considering. It 
so happens that during the present generation four of 
the most eminent of her priests, conspicuous by the 
splendour of their intellectual gifts, have merited the 
admonition or provoked the censures of the Church. 
We need not hesitate to recall the fact, for it will be 
found only to add new lustre to her imperishable glory. 
De Lamennais and Gioberti, Rosmini and Ventura, — 
of whom the two last have been imitators of the lowly 
Fenelon, the two first of the arrogant Tertullian, — are 
examples in our own day of the ceaseless vigilance of 
the successors of St. Peter, in rebuking and destroying 
error. The two first resisted him, and withered away 
like a tree blasted by lightning ; the two last obeyed 
his paternal remonstrance, and by their humility ac- 
quired fresh titles to the love and respects of Christians, 
to whom they have bequeathed so excellent an example. 
Such is the sleepless fidelity of G-od's Vicar, and such 
are the fruits of his Divine mission to preserve the 
children entrusted to him in the purity and simplicity 
of our most holy faith. Before his presence error hides 
her face, and the spirits of darkness, despairing of suc- 
cess, return to the abyss from which they came out. 

And how is it with the Sects? Far from warring 
against religious error, they exist only to maintain and 
defend its sovereign rights ! They claim to believe w^hat- 
ever their own diseased imagination may persuade them 
to accept, and to whatever the "itching ears" of 

others may induce them to hear. What is feebly re- 
pudiated by one sect is cordially welcomed by another, 
6 



42 



and even in the same sect every conflicting interpre- 
tation of revealed truth has exactly the same title to 
respect, because it has its origin in the same right of 
private judgment, and appeals to the same personal 
infallibility in those to whom it is addressed. The 
Church of England, the most powerful of all Protestant . 
communities, by reason of her vast endowments and 
connection with the State, differs from the other sects 
mainly in this, that within her fold are taught at the 
same time all the errors maintained in every other, in 
addition to those which have been invented by herself. 
And they are all taught with equal authority, and with 
the same absolute immunity from remonstrance or cor- 
rection. How should one man remonstrate with another 
for doing what he claims the right to do himself, or 
correct in his neighbour the aberrations which he may 
adopt as his own whenever he feels inclined to do so? 
And thus the eternal confusion of the Kingdom of 
Chaos is renowned from generation to generation, as one 
wave follows another in a stormy and tumidtuous sea, 
and while the Church reflects in every age the unbroken 
Unity of G-od, the Sects represent only the strife and 
disorder which is the eternal portion of the fallen spirits 
in their own home, and which they have succeeded too 
well in introducing into ours, wherever they are not 
confronted by those invincible allies, the Mother of God 
and the Yicar of Christ. 

It is a satisfaction to me, and will be at least an equal 
satisfaction to you, that I have now arrived at the last 
point upon which I think it necessary to trouble you 
with a few words. We have compared the Temples of 
Order and Chaos, as carefully as the time at our dis- 
posal permitted, in some of their most conspicuous 
features. It remains only to determine, as far as we 
have the means of doing so, what will be the relative 



43 



position of the worsliipx^ers in each, when both temples 
shall have ceased to exist in their present form. With- 
out this final enquiry, all that \Ye have already said 
would be incomplete. 

With respect to Catholics, it is evident that, in pass- 
ing from the Church on earth to the Church in beaven, 
no change need come upon tliem^ except that which is 
implied in passing from the state of grace to the state 
of glory. They will be one there, as they have been one 
here. For tliem the miracle of supernatural Unity 
is already worked. That mark of God's Hand is 
already upon them. That sign of God's election is 
already graven upon their foreheads. Faith indeed 
will be replaced by sight, but this will be no real 
change, because what they see in the next world will be 
what they have believed in this. The same Sacramental 
Xing, to borrow an expression of Father Faber, w^hom 
here they have worshipped upon the Altar, will there 
be their everlasting portion. The same gracious Ma- 
donna, who has so often consoled them in the trials of 
this life, will introduce her own children to the glories 
of the next. They will not in that hour have to "buy 
oil " for their lamps, for they are already kindled at the 
lamp of the sanctuary. IN'o wedding-robe will have to 
be provided for them, for they received it long ago at 
the baptismal font, and have washed away its stains in 
the tribunal of penance. The faces of the Saints and 
Angels will not be strange to them, for have they not 
been familiar with them from infancy as friends, com- 
panions, and benefactors? And being thus, even in 
this world, of the household of faith, and the family of 
God, not only no shadow of change need pass upon 
them, but to vary in one iota from what they now believe 
and practice would simply cut them off from the Com- 
munion of Saints, and be the most overwhelming dis- 
aster which could befal them. 



44 



Ifc is evident, on the other hand, that if the children 
of Chaos are to enter heaven, — a lot which we earnestly 
desire for them, — tliey can only do so after undergoing 
a radical and fundamental change. This, I say, is 
evident, for this reason among others, because tliey are 
not one^ and nothing is more indisputably certain than 
this, that there can be no division in heaven. "God is 
not the God of dissension," says St. Paul, "but of 
peace," and if He has not suffered any interruption of 
Unity even in the Church Militant, the most disordered 
imagination cannot suppose the He will tolerate it in 
the Church Triumphant. How should disunion exist 
in the very presence of God? It would not be more 
monstrous to suppose that sin could sit on His right 
hand, throned and crowned. It follows, that if the 
members of the rival* sects, which make up in their 
aggregate the great army of Chaos, are to enter heaven, 
whatever else they may take in with them, they must 
leave their differences at the door. Heaven is not a 
debating society, in which the disputes and contradic- 
tions of the children of error are to be eternally per- 
petuated. They have had tlieir reign on earth, but 
must not expect to continue it in heaven. There dwells 
absolute and eternal Unity, the Unity of the Un- 
divided Godhead, the same Unity which in the Catho- 
lic Church has already triumphed even over the frail- 
ties of men, and which, as far as CatlioUcs are concerned, 
will only be renewed and perfected in the company of 
the elect. 

If, indeed, it were possible, — and with this observa- 
tion I conclude, — that the children of the Sects should 
enter heaven in their present state, each with his own 
personal creed, his own particular corruption of Chris- 
tianity, have you ever considered what must be the in- 
evitable i*esult ? We are told that there are in heaven, 



45 



besides Angels and Archangels, Thrones, Dominions, 
Principalities, and Powers. Imagine, then, if you can, 
an Episcopalian Archangel leaning over the battle- 
ments of heaven in hot dispute with a Methodist 
Seraph, or an angry Presbyterian Throne flinging texts 
of Scripture in the face of a Baptist Princijoality. 
What a heaven it would be! Who can conceive the 
consternation of the Angels in having such a company 
thrust upon them ? Farewell, for ever, the peace which 
they have known from the first hour of their creation. 
Chaos has mounted up into heaven, and Order unfolds 
her wings to fly from an abode where she has no longer 
a home. I do not affirm that no Episcopalian, Metho- 
dist, or Presbyterian will enter heaven, but only that 
before they do so, since God will certainly remain what 
He is, they must cease to be what they are, and be- 
come something which now they are not. From this 
dilemma they can escape only by supposing, — and per- 
haps we shall some day see a new sect of which this 
will be the distinctive tenet, — that each denomination 
will have a heaven to itself, and that the inhabitants of 
one heaven will not be permitted to visit those of 
another, for fear they should renew in the next world 
the quarrels which were their chief employment in 
this. Well, this arrangement has perhaps the merit of 
simplicity, but it w^ants something to make it complete. 
Will the children of Chaos tell us, if they can, in which 
of these earth-begotten heavens where neither Saint 
nor Angel would stoop to dwell, will the Holy and 
Undivided One establish His throne? 



Order and Chaos; 

A LECTURE, 

DELIVERED AT 

Loyola College, Baltimore, in July, 1869, 

By T. W. M. MARSHALL, Esq., 

Author op "Chri5?tian Mission s." 



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most of them Protestant. All the hidden springs of action are developed, and the actors, themselves in the stirring drama 
of the Sixteenth Century, are brought upon the stage, and portrayed, as represented by themselves, or depicted by their 
contemporaries and friends. The various influences of the Reformation in the different countries of Europe, are also 
thoroughly examined, and its claims to have given a new impulse to Liberty, Literature and Civilization, are carefully 
scrutinized. Facts and Authorities are succinctly and methodically arranged. 

Lectures on the Evidences of CafhoUclty. By the Most Rev. M J. Spalding, 
D. D , Archbishop of Baltimore. Fourth Revised Edition. In one volume, So., 
various Bindings, from $2.00 to $3.50. 

These Lectures are intended to exhibit, in a plain and straightforward m inner, the principal Evidences of the Catholic 
Church. To every lover of the Christian Religion, it must be apparent, on sufficient examination, that the Evidences 
which sustain Catholicity are substantially identical with those which establish Christianity. The scope of these Lectures 
is to establish this identity. 

Balmes on European Civilization. 

rrotestantism and Catholicity Comjmreds in their Effects on the Civilization 
of Europe. So., cloth, $3.00— Library style, $3.50. 

" This Book, to be known, must be read, and we would recommend all who would possess one of the great Books which 
has appeared in our day, to lose no time in procuring it."— Brownson. 

The Genius of Christianity ; or, the Spirit and Beavty of the Christian 
lielifjion. B. V. De Chateaubriand. With a Preface, Biographical Notice of 
the Author, and Critical- and Explanatory Notes, by the Rev. C. I. White, D. D. 
With a fine Steel Portrait of (Chateaubriand. Nearly 800 pages, demi, So., cloth, 
$2.25— cloth, bev. full gilt, $3.00. 

The Genius of Chrintianiti/ is now presented to the public for the Jirsl time, in a complete English translation, accom- 
panied with a biographical notice of the distinguished author. This work was originally published in France, more than 
fifty years ago, and has been pronounced by the best critics one of the most eloquent, instructive and interesting produc- 
tions of which the literature of the 19th century can boast. 

It is easily conceived that such a work, from such an author as Chateaubriand, whom Alison has proclaimed to be un- 
questionably the most eloquent writer of the present age, must possess no ordinary claims to public regard. As a vindica- 
tion of Christianity, it is remarkable for its originality of method, its profound reflections, its variety and strength of 
argument. As a literary work, it is unsurpassed for its grand and brilliant range of subject, its beauty of thought and 
language ; and while it suggests the gravest topics for the consideration of the philosopher, the legislator and the philan- 
thropist, it invests them w ith attractions which must charm and captivate every class of readers. 



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